hi I'm John bage author of the book
watching paint dry today we're going to
go over how you preper room for
painting now here's a look at some of
the equipment you're going to need
now the very first thing you want to do
when you're prepping a room for painting
is you want to clear the room of
everything okay get the bed out get the
dressers out maybe you put your beds in
the basement for a few days and sleep
down
there the dressers go in the living
room in the long run it just saves a lot
of time if you're not trying to work
around stuff and move stuff away and do
one wall at a time Etc now after you
remove the pictures from the walls if
you're going to put them right back up
where they were you can leave the nail
there and just kind of paint around it
if you want of course if you're not
going to put them back up or you're
going to move them you want to pull out
all the nails and
screws now the next thing you want to do
is just give the room a quick cleaning
okay take the vacuum with the brush
attachment around vacuum out the closet
shelves the windows the baseboard the
heater just everything real quick
cleaning
okay the next step is to spackle any
nail holes in the walls or the trim now
one thing you might want to do is make
what I call a spackle
ghost now here's how you make a spackle
ghost take a big scoop of spackle and
stick it right in the middle of a piece
of your painter's
plastic then turn it into a
ghost twist it
put a piece of tape right around the
neck then take a nail and poke a little
hole right in the end of it now this is
going to dispense spackle in a way
that's much easier to get into little
nail holes than if you're trying to
scoop it out of the bucket every time
now for little nail holes and thumb tack
holes just take a little bit of spackle
on your
finger rub it right in there and then
get it all off the
surface now if you have a bigger hole
like this here's what you want to do now
the first thing you want to do is just
take your finger and get any loose stuff
off of there then put a good amount of
spackle onto your putty knife
here go right over like that and then as
few wipes as possible and then you can
even take your finger and kind of smooth
out the wall
around now of course you're going to
want to spackle any nail holes in your
trim now here's how you do that first of
all take the tip of your finger rub the
hole to get any loose debris away from
the edge then put a little bit of
spackle on your finger and push it into
that hole then put a little more on your
finger and push it in again as hard as
you can and then even a little bit more
and push it in one more time what this
does is you push so much spackle into
the hole that you overfill it and when
it dries it actually pushes itself back
out and that means that when you come to
sand it later you're sanding raised Edge
down which is a much better way to try
to make it look smooth if you don't put
enough spackle in there the Spackle will
shrink back into the hole and you'll
have a depression that you'll never be
able to get rid
of okay now after the Spackle had time
to dry it's time to
sand now you can use sandpaper if you
want maybe 180 220 Grit I kind of like
these sanding sponges though they're
real nice they move quickly they're
great for getting in little
edges just like that and really all
you're doing here is cuffing up the
surface a little bit so that it will
accept the next coat of paint now if you
spackled nail holes of course you're
going to want to get those sanded smooth
if you spackled big holes in the wall
you're going to go want to hit them with
the sanding sponge real quickly you're
going to be painting doors
give the door surface a hit with the
sanding sponge and here I've got this
fuse box it's metal and I'm going to
paint this too because it's kind of ugly
so I just want to make it try to blend
into the wall as much as possible so I'm
going to hit it with the sanding sponge
and then I'm going to hit it with a K of
primer with an aerosol can and then
it'll be all ready to accept a c of
latex
paint of course in addition to the door
casings and the windows if you've got
baseboard or crown molding you're going
to want to give that a cuff with the
sanding
sponge okay now after you're done with
the spackling and the sanding and the
vacuuming now it's time to start cocking
all right now you're going to want to
bring a little bucket of water with you
with a rag in it so that you can keep
dipping your fingers that really helps
you manipulate the now I recommend
a dripless gun and here's how you
want to cut the tip off just go back
maybe eighth of an inch qu of an inch
cut it off right there at a 45° angle
and you should be good to go in a room
like this there really isn't too much
clocking to do okay I'm going to go
check the edge of where every piece of
trim meets the wall if there's any crack
there I'm going to it and then I'm
going to rub it in with my finger just
like
this run it down get your finger a
little wet and just rub that right
in there like
that can do it real
quick now you want to check all the
joints in the door casings and the
window casings places like this if
you've got that old brown 1970s wood
trim and you're going to paint it white
then you've got a lot of cocking to do
on your door casings and your window
casings
but really it's just a matter of going
around and taking a real close look at
everything anywhere you see a crack
you're going to want to get some in
there cuz those cracks will show up
later
when you're done with the cocking and
you've given it at least a day to drrive
now it's time to mask the room so that
you can roll the ceiling and the walls
first of all you'll notice that I've
draped an awning across the top of all
the windows and door
frames now I've also masked the top of
this baseboard
heater I put a couple pieces on the door
to prevent the door handles from getting
speckled when I'm rolling the
ceiling of course I've put a piece of
tape over all the light switches and all
the
outlets masked off any thermostats or
anything else on the
wall probably a good idea to mask off
the light fixture make sure it's covered
with plastic
okay once you've got everything masked
then there's only one thing left to do
of prepping the room and that's priming
now the thing to remember about priming
is you want to be a little surgical
about it you want to take a brush and
very carefully apply a little bit of
primer on them and then make sure you
feather it out so that it doesn't show
up later now if you've got big patches
on the wall that need to be primed I
suggest using a weeny roller that would
help them blend in if you start making
Big Brush Strokes in the middle of the
wall that might show up later now for
most interior priming just a good latex
interior stain blocking primer will
do okay so now you know how to prep a
room for painting now the best thing
about prepping a room for painting is
that after you've done all this work the
actual painting seems like a treat now
to see my video on how to paint the
ceiling and video on how to paint the
walls and the trim go to my website how
to paint a house.com where you'll find
all those videos and more and a lot of
other helpful information that I have
put together to help you paint your
house right
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